Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 07/02/2026

Storm Force Rain

This week the weather certainly had its say.  We had a serious amount of rainfall come down and some real stormy westerly winds blowing into the guys fishing along the Alamo bank, making life a little uncomfortable at times during the week.  Let’s read to see how the anglers got on.

Fishing for most of the week off the back of the wind and using this wind to his advantage was angler Jamie Londers in Alcatraz. 

Many of those reading this might know or have heard of Jamie from the carp fishing match scene, fishing as part of the Mainline Baits team in the British Carp Champs and being an integral part of the Carp Team England.  So, it was no surprise that Jamie hit the ground running from Alcatraz.

Jamie started off with one of our new fish, at 15lb 2oz but it was a starting point.

Monday a much better average weight of fish graced his net, these included ‘Matrix’ at 46lb and ‘The Gaffer’ weighing 40lb 4oz.  And then the rest of the week followed a similar pattern…..

Tuesday resulted in again another fresh one at 14lb 8oz, this was followed by ‘Welsh Wizard’ at 25lb and then ‘Grinder’ weighing 28lb 8oz.

A trio of 30’s came along the next day, these included ‘Cos Coin’ weighing 31lb, ‘Tripple M’ at 36lb 8oz and finally an original scaley ‘Trans Pretty One’ weighing 39lb.

Thursday produced Jamie’s first 50lb+ fish in the shape of ‘Hat’s’ being 50lb 12oz and a new 50lb’er for the lake, which was nice to see.  This was also backed up with ‘Laser’ weighing 25lb.

Four more fish were lined up on the Friday morning, before Jamie left for home a day early.  The final four fish included ‘Eco-Fuel’ weighing 36lb 8oz, ‘Penny’ at 39lb 2oz, ‘Luxembourg’ weighing 40lb 4oz and finally another original fish and a true character of the lake, ‘Digits’ just shy of its top weight at 53lb 4oz.

16 carp for Jamie is not to be sniffed at with a couple of 50’s thrown into the mix for good measure, and not a bad average size of fish neither.

Jamie picked to fish all of his three rods together on one spot just to the right of Big Southerly as you look out from the swim, with the rods cast to the edge of its boundary.  Rig wise Jamie deployed spinner rigs with yellow pineapple pop ups to bring the fish to his net.  And over this Jamie fed a combination of two different new test baits from Mainline, some in 10mm and some crushed.  This was then added to a mixture of hemp and corn, with Jamie getting through around 50kg of bait in total for the week.  It does sound like a lot of bait, but when you are on the fish you do go through it keeping them interested.  Bites mainly came through the night and just into first light around breakfast time.

Bobby Marvin joined us for the first time at Gigantica and after having ball one did not hesitate to go into Co’s Point.  With the swim having been in good form, it was easy to see why.

Sunday morning Bobby landed his first fish from here, and this was in the form of ‘Brizzle’ which weighed 38lb 4oz.  A nice account opener.

This fish came on a single solid bag that was positioned out towards the ‘Tits’ at a shorter distance than it has been fished of late at 27 ½ wraps.

Bobby’s second and final fish of the week came the very next day on the Monday.  And again, this turned out to be yet another new 50lb’er for us, this time it was ‘Gums’ at a top weight of 53lb 8oz.

This was also from the 27 ½ wrap range but towards the ‘flat oaks’, and despite at the end of the week trying his luck longer at 31 wraps it just didn’t happen after his bright start to the week.

The last of the anglers to catch this week was Bobby’s brother Harry Marvin who chose to fish from The Stink.

And very much like the week before in this swim, Harry also left it right to the end of the week on the Friday to catch his only fish of the week.  But a nice fish it was, at 43lb and has chosen to be a difficult one to identify on the website, but the search does go on.

A single hook bait, a yellow pineapple pop up on a spinner rig, cast out long towards Baxter’s produced the fish for Harry after fishing at 28 wraps to the left of Bob’s Beach for the bulk of the week.

That’s it for another week here at the big G.  Plenty of bushes and trees around the complex starting to get buds on the branches now, so surely spring is not to far away.

Until next time, tight lines.

Gareth “Gino”